When reminiscing about religious art, Nolde spoke of "an irresistible desire to represent spiritual depth, religion and interiority." And while painting the Last Supper (1909) he realized that he must be "free artistically," not hampered or paralyzed by a God who was like "an ironclad Assyrian despot," but carrying him "within me, hot and holy like the love of Christ." Nolde is a master of color and light which he uses to illuminate and transfigure his coarse and clumsy figures. Nolde's colors have a burning and purifying quality lending his figures, in particular that of Jesus Christ, a visionary aura (see, for example, Life of Christ, a polyptych of nine paintings, 1912). This ecstatic and visionary character can also be perceived in the Prophet. To describe the intensity of the spiritual experience, the language of mysticism readily resorts to expressions like melting, dissolving and streaming. We believe that these same words can be applied to the Prophet. His face is literally dissolving in spiritual intensity and visionary ecstasy, held together only by the burning eyes and the profiles of nose and mouth. The prophet remains without name. It could be Christ, but it could also be an archetype of the "irresistible desire" for spiritual experience and depth. The Prophet is the human counterpart of Yahweh who "touches the earth and it melts."
Related scripture reading: Amos 9: 5-6
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